What Can Lord of the Flies Teach Modern Society?

The book Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, gives the reader insights about how modern society can be improved through the mistakes of its characters. The story is about a group of boys whose plane crashes on an uninhabited island, and about how they cannot create a successful society on it. The triumph of a tribe of pig-hunting “savages” over a leader that tries to establish governance, civility, and order on the island can show how people can see war as the only option when diplomacy is possible. The brutal killings of the weakest physically but most rational and thoughtful characters mentally and the fact that these characters dislike each other shows how people should listen to people of lower status in society, because they may be smarter than many would think. The hysteria that comes from the discovery of a “beast” in the book, which is really just a dead paratrooper and a parachute, shows how people can create huge arguments about subjects that are not being thoroughly thought about. The words of Lord of the Flies have valuable lessons if you look close to them. If modern societies would try to prevent war in any way possible, listen to the unheard and oppressed, and prevent hysteria by looking deeper, the world would become a much better place.

In Lord of the Flies, the boys start out excited and have a meeting and leader (Ralph). However, the island falls into chaos as hunting and eventually killing prevails. A “savage” tribe of painted and half-naked primitive hunters led by a boy named Jack regress from people who were once British schoolboys. The hunters' chant of “Kill the pig! Cut his Throat! Spill his blood” is first heard after a pig hunt, then is heard jokingly directed at a human, and is then used at the death of a human (Golding 69). Modern societies are also structured with leaders and governments who meet often and make laws, and wars, where groups of humans fight and kill each other, still occur. The war cause, with booming industry, advertisements, and approval of soldiers as patriots, is widely accepted in taken for granted around the world, especially in the USA. But is the world strategy of the war machine needed? In Lord of the Flies, the call of the chant certainly did not work out well for the boys on the island, and the same amount of enthusiasm is presented as patriotism in the world today.

The War in Iraq, which took countless lives, including of many civilians, did not lead the country to lasting peace as the terrorist group called the Islamic State controls much of the northern part of the country today. Even if a country has a dictator, like Iraq did with Saddam Hussein, is it right to go into the country and cause the deaths of many innocent people to topple the bad ruler? The answer to the USA was definitely yes: “As the inspectors {who were looking for nuclear weapons} work, the US begins deploying troops to the Middle East, sending 25,000 in late December and 62,000 more in early January. Many in Europe see the military build-up as proof that the USA have never intended to do anything but to go to war” (“The Failure of Diplomacy”). Sending thousands of troops into a country when the truth is not yet known shows that the United States forwent diplomacy in the situation in Iraq for no good reason. In Lord of the Flies, the meetings and assemblies of Ralph are also foregone as the conch, a shell that was used to call the boys together and represented governance on the island, was rendered useless. Members of the primitive group stated: “Bollocks to the rules! We're strong—we hunt,” (Golding 91) and“And the conch doesn't count on{the tribe's}end of the island” (Golding 150). When Ralph and his group travel to the hunting tribe and try to restore order for one last time, one of Ralph's friends, Piggy, is killed and his call for order is not heard. The chaos and disorder on both the island and in Iraq were caused by the lack of willingness for diplomacy of Jack's tribe and the United States, respectively. Diplomacy should be option number one in times of trouble, as war just brings more disorder than there was earlier.

In Lord of the Flies, two of the characters that were the least powerful physically but most righteous mentally had their ideas suppressed and were eventually brutally killed. The story parallels the fact that in modern cultures, groups of people who have a point to say have not been heard, have been prejudiced against, and have been drowned out by others. Simon, the first boy to be killed, was very thoughtful, helpful and independent, but the other boys did not understand him and picked on him for his abnormalities. Even Piggy, another boy that was bullied on the island, said that Simon was “cracked” (Golding 132). Piggy's statement shows the common reality of people who are being suppressed turning on the differences of others to try to feel good. A view on Simon's his character is: “In effect, Simon becomes a figure representative of spirituality and moral goodness, which the other boys find bizarre” (Frank). Simon is similar to people in the real world that are quieter and introspective, who are seen as antisocial and cowardly (as because of their time spent thinking they may fail no focus on work). In fact, thoughtful people can have hightend focus that can lead to great ideas. Simon also fainted easily and was smaller than the other boys, so he was easy to pick on. The tragedy of Simon's death was that it was an accident in part and that he was going to help possibly save the boys from falling down the wrong path because of his thoughtfulness.

The other boy who was killed was Piggy, and he was the most rational-minded and optimistic boy on the island. However, his lack of physical strength hurt his status on the island: “Despite his braininess, however, Piggy remains disliked primarily because the boys cannot understand the science behind his rambling but more so because he is the lazy, glasses-wearing 'fat boy'” (Frank). One boy even mocks Piggy by retorting, “Sucks to your ass-mar” in reference to Piggy's asthma. Piggy represents both people who are very analytical and may be hard for others to understand and people who have appearances that make them seem weak. In fact, people like Piggy can have very strong minds. Ralph, one of the few boys who realizes Piggy's strengths, lamented after Piggy's death: “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of a man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 202). Hopefully in the future real world, more people can help people who may be misunderstood, and can prevent them from being prejudiced against.

Hysteria about subjects that were not looked into thouroughly is a problem in modern society, and also was a problem in Lord of the Flies. The younger boys on the island hadscary nightmares about a beast, which made the boys weary. When a dead paratrooper and parachute fell onto the island the boys did not find the sense to look at it closely, and ran away instead. The hysteria grew as one of the boys recalled: “The beast followed us...Nearly touched me” (Golding 100). Looking back at the tradjedy of Simon's death, what he in his thoughtfulness had found out and was about to be told was that there was no beast on the island. He had determinened thoughts after finding out the truth about “the Beast”: “The beast was harmless and horrible and the news must reach the others as soon as possible” (Golding 147). The hysteria surrounding the beast was the reason that the boys attacked him (as they were mistaking him for a beast coming from the top of the mountain to attack them).

Hysteria led to a misunderstanding with great consequences in Lord of the Flies, and it leads to the same results in modern culture, especially in the political sphere. Politics today, especially in the USA, is parisan with two parties on opposite sides on most issues, and little lawmaking gets done as a result. Take a scholar's reaction to the opposite sides of one sociopolitical issue, abortion: “The literature on abortion...one longs for something new, an idea that will shake things up, but as each new article or book comes out, one is left with the dreadful and yet unavoidable sense that everything has been said...only the names of the authors who offer the arguments have changed” (Carter). With no new points of view on the subject that look for compromise, people on both sides of the argument are lead to feel like a wrong has been done. One side thinks women are having their rights restricted while another side thinks babies are being killed, but both sides are using media and exaggerations to villify each other. Sociopolitical issues such as abortion could be solved if the world took a path of compromise instead of a path of hysteria like what happens in Lord of the Flies.

The book Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, can teach modern society a lot about how it can improve itself in areas where fighting has overtaken peaceful diplomacy, discourse, and compromise. The acceptance of hunting and killing over order in the book can teach the world to choose diplomacy over war. The suppresion and killing of thoughtful and rational characters in the book because of their physical traits shows the world that all people's strength's should be understood. The boys' hysteria over a false beast shows society to look deeper into its sociopolitical problems. Lord of the Flies can be interpreted as a book that shows the negative side of human nature so the positive side of human nature can come out in real life.